Finally, after several minutes of trying to shake him off, Spider yelled, “Okay, okay. Get off me.”
“Promise you’ll leave Graham alone.”
“Yeah. Get off.”
Mitchell jumped to the ground where Graham still lay prostrate and groaning, one of his front teeth broken. Birchy had vanished.
“You’ll pay for this, Fisher,” Spider sneered as he stood panting with his hands on his knees.
“Yeah. And I’ll tell everyone how Mitchell battered you,” Graham lisped.
Spider glared at the two of them, before he tossed his head and ambled away.
“You okay?” Mitchell crouched down and helped Graham to his feet.
Graham nodded and dusted off his clothes. He stuck a finger through a fresh hole in his sweater. “I owe you one for this, Mitchell. I’ll never forget it.”
They had been best friends ever since.
* * *
Graham lived in a boxy house with pebble-dashed walls on a street full of similar houses. He was a bus driver by day and loved gaming on his Playstation at night with a wide network of friends.
Michell used to call around a few times a year, when the two men would revert to their teenage years and play computer games in Graham’s bedroom. When she was alive, Mrs. Gates kept them supplied with toast, chocolate biscuits and cups of tea.
After Anita died, Graham kept in touch with phone calls and notes, telling him to call him anytime, day or night, if he needed to talk. But, too wrapped up in his own grief, Mitchell often didn’t reply.
When Mitchell attended Mrs. Gates’s funeral, memories of Anita’s service brought on such a pain in his chest he found it hard to breathe. As the vicar spoke, he stared at his shoes and couldn’t meet Graham’s eyes for fear of dissolving into a quivering wreck. He had dashed off after the service, unable to face sandwiches and drinks in the local pub afterward and the two men hadn’t met up properly since.
Mitchell took the wedding invitation out of his pocket and thought again of how sequined hearts were so unlike his friend. He hadn’t been there for Graham for a long time, and it was time to change that.
He rang the doorbell and noticed Mrs. Gates’s chintzy curtains had been replaced with red velvet ones.
“Mitchy Boy,” Graham said when he opened the door. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here.” He wore a dark green Adidas tracksuit and white running shoes. His skin had the deathly pallor of someone who rarely ventured outside. He’d never had his broken tooth repaired so when he pronounced the letter S it sounded like a hiss. “It’s good to see you.”
The two men performed an awkward hug on the doorstep.
Mitchell waved the card. “It’s amazing you’re getting married. I’d love to accept your invitation.”
“It’ll be great to have you there, man. I mean it. Come on inside.”
Mitchell followed Graham into his home. The flowery wallpaper, swirly carpets and burgundy tasseled lightshades that had been there since their childhoods were gone, along with the gold-colored sofa and photo frames that proclaimed The World’s Best Son.
The room now resembled a fortune-teller’s caravan. The walls were purple and tarot cards lay in a cross pattern on Graham’s coffee table. There was a foot-tall wooden man standing on the mantelpiece that Mitchell assumed was a fertility statue due to the size of a certain appendage.
There were still definite hints of Graham around the place—a Lego Death Star displayed on a shelf, gaming trophies and piles of tech magazines everywhere—but the place looked very different.
“Tea?” Graham asked, gesturing for Mitchell to sit down.
“Please.”
“We have oolong, green tea, matcha or lapsang souchong. And we may have Darjeeling.”
Mitchell stared at him. “You really have a tea menu?”
“Rosie has opened my mind. I recommend the oolong, it’s of a very fine quality.”
“I’d prefer a plain old tea bag, if you have one.”
“I think I still have a box of Mum’s breakfast stuff somewhere,” Graham said with a grin before ducking into the kitchen.
Mitchell moved a mirrored velvet throw off the sofa and sat down. He felt like he was attending a job interview but, when Graham returned, Mitchell recognized one of Mrs. Gates’s cups, bone china with a tiny rose print. It made him feel instantly more at home. “This place looks very...um, bohemian.”
Graham beamed with pride. “Rosie,” he said, as if her name explained everything.
“Ah.”
“When Mum died, I thought I was set to be a bachelor for life. I mean, I go to gaming conventions, but conversation usually revolves around wiggling your thumbs on a controller.”
“Not a good dating environment?”
“Not really.”
“So, where did you meet Rosie?”
“She works in a computer repair shop in the city. My PlayStation controller was playing up, so I took it to be fixed, and there she was, behind the counter.” He smacked a fist into his hand. “I saw her violet hair and a twinkle in her eye and I was a goner. Just knew it. That woman knows everything about Fortnite and Overwatch. You should see her on Call of Duty.” He sipped his tea. “I should tell you that she’s pregnant, too. Seven months.”
“Oh, congratulations.” The speedy wedding date suddenly made more sense to Mitchell.
“I’m not the biological daddy, but I don’t care. I want them both to be part of my life forever.” He thumped his chest. “Can feel it here. When you know, you know, right? I’m ready to take that plunge. I’m not sure Mum would approve of Rosie, especially her interior design skills, but she was always a hard to please woman. I happen to think the house looks amazing.”
Mitchell looked around him and noticed a dream catcher in the corner. “It’s very striking.”
“I kind of feel like I’m emerging from a cave, after living with Mum for so long. Rosie’s helped to find the real me again. I know you’re not a romantic kind of guy,” Graham said as he clasped both hands around his teacup. “But will you be my best man?”
Mitchell’s jaw dropped. He felt touched his friend wanted him to do this. “Me?”
“Yeah. You’ll have to dig deep to find good stuff to say about me in your speech. No talk about computers or school detentions, but yeah, I want you to do it.”
The crystals and chunks of amethyst on Graham’s mantelpiece glittered in a shaft of sunlight, and Mitchell felt like he was shining, too. “I’d be honored. Really. I’m sorry I’ve not seen as much of you as I should have done. This is a big deal...”